Semenya ends legal battle over sex eligibility rules

CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya is ending a seven-year ineligible situation against enactment eligibility rules successful way and field, her lawyers said Thursday, contempt winning a ruling at the European Court of Human Rights successful July that appeared to person reignited 1 of sports' astir contentious cases.

Patrick Bracher, a lawyer for Semenya, said successful an email to The Associated Press that they wouldn't instrumentality her entreaty backmost to the Swiss ultimate court, which was an enactment and what galore presumed to beryllium Semenya's adjacent measurement aft the European rights tribunal ruling.

"Caster's ineligible situation reached the highest imaginable tribunal with a highly palmy result and volition not beryllium taken further successful the circumstances," Bracher wrote.

Landmark lawsuit Semenya is simply a two-time Olympic golden medallist successful the 800 meters from South Africa who has been banned from moving successful her favourite contention astatine large planetary meets similar the Olympics and satellite championships since 2019 due to the fact that she refused to travel the rules and instrumentality medicine to artificially trim her hormone levels.

Since 2018, she has taken her ineligible conflict against the rules enforced by way governing assemblage World Athletics to 3 courts; the Switzerland-based highest tribunal for sports, the Swiss Federal Tribunal and the European Court of Human Rights.

She has argued that the rules infringed her rights. She mislaid her appeals astatine the Court of Arbitration for Sport and astatine the Swiss Federal Tribunal.

However, the European Court of Human Rights ruled successful July that she hadn't had a just proceeding astatine the Swiss tribunal and it hadn't decently considered immoderate of the analyzable arguments. That opened an avenue for her to proceed her challenge.

Career ended astatine its highest Semenya was the world's ascendant middle-distance runner and was unbeaten successful much than 30 races erstwhile she was barred. Now 34, she has moved into coaching, with the regulations efficaciously ending her career.

She has been the look of fiercely contentious enactment eligibility rules successful sports since she won the satellite championships arsenic a teen successful 2009 and was forced to acquisition enactment verification tests. Semenya has 1 of a fig of conditions known arsenic differences successful enactment development, oregon DSD. She has the emblematic antheral XY chromosome signifier but besides pistillate carnal traits and precocious levels of people occurring testosterone. DSD conditions are sometimes called intersex conditions.

Semenya is not transgender contempt her lawsuit often being conflated with the divisive statement implicit the information of transgender athletes successful pistillate competitions. She was identified arsenic pistillate astatine birth, raised arsenic a girl, and has ever identified arsenic female.

World Athletics says Semenya and a tiny fig of different DSD athletes successful planetary way person testosterone levels successful the antheral range, giving them an unfair vantage implicit different women due to the fact that of the hormone's transportation to musculus wide and cardio-vascular performance.

How overmuch vantage DSD athletes summation from testosterone has been disputed successful 1 of the galore analyzable details of Semenya's landmark case.

Track regulations present adjacent stricter Track and tract introduced caller rules governing women with precocious earthy testosterone successful 2011 successful a determination seen arsenic a nonstop effect to the accomplishment of Semenya. The regulations person been made stricter implicit the years and the latest regularisation alteration introduced earlier this twelvemonth moves distant from monitoring testosterone and requires women competing successful planetary way to acquisition a familial trial to cheque for the beingness of a Y chromosome.

If they neglect the one-off familial enactment eligibility test, they are banned from pistillate competitions. The caller rules came into effect Sept. 1 up of past month's satellite championships.

Bracher noted successful his email to the AP that the existent regulations are precise antithetic to those Semenya challenged successful tribunal erstwhile her lawsuit started 7 years ago. But Semenya's caller triumph astatine the European rights tribunal mightiness supply a ground for a caller situation by different jock against the existent regulations, helium said.

Other sports tighten rules While Semenya's lawsuit made way and tract the main battleground implicit enactment eligibility for astir 2 decades, different high-profile sports similar swimming person moved to artifact women with DSD conditions from competing. Semenya's lawsuit was often seen arsenic a precedent for different sports to present their ain restrictions.

Boxing was mired successful a enactment eligibility scandal astatine the Paris Olympics past twelvemonth implicit the information of Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan aft officials claimed they had pr...